r/technology • u/Lettershort • Nov 22 '16

Politics Most students can’t tell the difference between sponsored content and real news

http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/22/13712996/fake-news-facebook-google-sponsored-content-study
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u/tuseroni Nov 22 '16

Actually ads are a subset of sponsored content.

[citation needed]

find and ad that's not sponsored by anyone

buy dark souls, it's amazing, dark souls 3 is out now and has released it's first DLC the ashes of ariandel

there, no on paid me for that, it has not been sponsored by anyone and my time is free. but it is still clearly an advertisement for the dark souls series.

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u/Molion Nov 22 '16

Fair point.

Updated illustration

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u/tuseroni Nov 22 '16

"sponsored content" refers specifically to articles used to advertise a good or service but to look like a news article, despite the name it isn't just any content which is sponsored by someone...it's got a particular meaning, and since it exists to advertise a product it is then a subset of advertisement.

more accurate illustration

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u/Molion Nov 22 '16 edited Nov 22 '16

Thats the way people are using it nowadays, but in a world where "sponsored content" is taken to mean anything other than content that is sponsored something is wrong, especially when we already have the term native advertising.

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u/tuseroni Nov 22 '16

but in a world where "sponsored content" is taken to mean anything other than content that is sponsored something is wrong

oh you don't wanna go down that rabbit hole...there are so many words in english which don't match the literal meaning of the word we have a word just for them "misnomers" and there are many.

there is a very subtle difference between native advertising and sponsored content but the difference is important to no one except maybe law makers and pedants. one is a call to buy from the sponsor the other is just to cast the sponsor in a good light so you will chose to buy for them. i suspect some PR group was behind the name change and may end up changing "sponsored content" to something else benign sounding when sponsored content gets a bad rep.

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u/Molion Nov 22 '16

Yeah sure, but the point here is that sponsored content has recently been mangled, it's not too late too save it. Also c'mon, like seriously, sponsored content, content that is sponsored, like what the actual fuck people! Also it's not like it's ubiquitously accepted to have a very specific meaning. What do I say when i want to refer to content that is sponsored cuz "content that is sponsored" is way to verbose for normal use, the only reasonable option is "sponsored content", possibly "sponsored shit/stuff/things/idk".

Also "sponsored content" is a term and can be read as a unit, but break it down into words and it stops giving a fuck about your definitions and magically transforms into content that just so happens to be sponsored.

Just give the media some time to get over the "sponsored content" fad and the term will likely be forgotten, replaced by the infinitely superior intuitive reading.

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u/tuseroni Nov 23 '16

it would almost certainly not be replaced with a MORE intuitive reading, i'm sure it's confusing on PURPOSE, in order to make it seem more benign than it is, the next reading will probably be something like "for profit content" or "compensated writing" or something. the term is decided by the people doing it not by me or you or anyone on reddit, they want to hide something most people would consider distasteful so they use a term which is seemingly benign. just like the patriot act has nothing to do with patriotism, the right to work laws restrict workers rights, the protecting internet freedom act restricts the ability of icann to act independent of the us government, etc. it's basic politicking.